ACSC

Advancing Conservation in a Social Context: Working in a World of Trade-Offs

Advancing Conservation in a Social Context: Working in a World of Trade-offs is a five-year international, interdisciplinary research initiative supported by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.  It is focused on reconsidering the underlying assumptions about how the conservation field attempts to reach its goals.  The program of research will contribute to improved conservation practice through a better understanding of the conditions under which natural resources are sustained over time, at a meaningful scale and in complex social-ecological contexts.  The ACSC Prinicple Investigator of the ACSC initiative is Tom McShane (mcshane@bluewin.ch), best known for his co-authored book The Myth of Wild Africa.

The ACSC research initiative has been created to investigate the complex trade-offs that exist between human well-being and biodiversity conservation goals in specific places, and between conservation and other economic, political and social agendas at local, national and international scales.  In order to reach its overall goal of improving the ability of key actors to identify, analyze and negotiate future conservation and development trade-offs, the ACSC initiative will take place in two phases.

During the three-year first phase (the research phase), the ACSC initiative will undertake a program of research to generate knowledge about how trade-offs occur and can be resolved.  To allow depth and rigor of analysis that is not possible at a global scale research will focus on three case-study countries – Vietnam, Tanzania and Peru – and will be coordinated by national institutions in those countries.  Systematic national analysis will be complemented by a broader global analysis of academic and practitioner understanding of trade-offs and various mechanisms and norms that have been developed within and outside of the conservation arena.

A “Blue Ribbon Panel” will report on the phase one research findings and increase recognition of the importance of trade-offs in global policy discussions.  It will also promote understanding and potential solutions to current challenges facing conservation and development initiatives.  The Blue Ribbon Panel report (Hard Choices: Trade-off Science in Conservation and Development) will represent the “state of science” on this topic.

The two-year second phase of the ACSC research initiative (the diffusion phase) seeks to encourage key actors to implement and refine new ways of approaching the balance between the conservation of biological diversity and social objectives—in effect, to encourage a change in the state of the art.  The initiative will engage a range of institutions and organizations, including multilateral and bilateral development agencies and banks, government departments, conservation and development NGOs, community-based organizations, the private sector, academic institutions, foundations and other donors, in order to accelerate the pace at which research findings are adopted, adapted and implemented by policymakers and practitioners.  This engagement will emphasize learning from experience – both the positive and negative lessons – and working to enhance collective understanding of and ability to address possible trade-offs between biodiversity conservation and human well-being.

CICR Role in the ACSC Initiative

CICR will contribute to the ACSC initiative by incorporating into its work plan three specific functions: (a) active participation in the global research component, (b) network development, and (c) communication and information management.

(A) Active Participation in the Global Research Component:
A major factor in ensuring that the ACSC initiative will have a substantive impact on the practice of conservation will be its ability to infuse the site-based research process with challenges posed by contemporary conservation scholarship across a range of disciplines related to understanding trade-offs.  CICR is actively participating in this aspect of the ACSC initiative.  CICR will monitor, collect and synthesize existing and emerging scholarship relevant to conservation trade-offs, and disseminate this information to site-based research partners.  It will monitor existing and emerging literatures, analyze ongoing research trends and evolving debates and identify knowledge gaps to determine ongoing ACSC research priorities with the greatest potential to enrich the analysis of conservation trade-offs.  Further, CICR will provide active research support for ACSC participants by collecting and organizing references and materials relevant to the analysis of conservation trade-offs.  It will serve as the repository for published and unpublished materials and provide an archive for ACSC research results.

More than simply a repository of information, CICR will play an important role in synthesizing and translating information in support of ACSC research goals.  Cutting-edge academic research on conservation rarely has an impact in the conservation field because few channels for dissemination exist and because specialized language and unfamiliar theoretical frameworks make it impenetrable to the uninitiated.  CICR will be responsible for translating the insights of contemporary scholarship into forms that may stimulate conservation innovation at project sites.  In doing so, we will draw not only on conservation scholarship from the academic realm, but from a broader range of existing and emerging literatures that derive from a diverse array of sources: research institutes, conservation organizations, advocacy groups, communities and others.  Further, through the life of the ACSC initiative, new issues and concepts will emerge through the research process and will be identified as priority topics for attention for integrative research.  The global research component coordinated by CICR will focus both on literatures that specifically pertain to conservation, and on literatures from other domains (development, indigenous rights) that promise new insights on conservation trade-offs.

CICR will make these materials available through working papers, readers, synthetic studies, commissioned studies, reference collections, bibliographies, thematic pages on the ACSC website, learning modules and other delivery mechanisms.  It will also provide guidance on social science methods relevant to the analysis of conservation trade-offs, and will collaborate with ACSC research partners to provide methodological templates for site-based research.

It is important to stress that the flow of information is not all one way.  Site-based researchers will provide critical feedback to global component of ACSC research activities, and mechanisms will be devised to ensure that CICR is responsive to the emerging needs of site-based researchers.  CICR will collaborate with other site-based researchers through shared mechanisms for issue identification and research theme development.  A series of collaborative activities intended to foster exchange between CICR and site-based researchers will be undertaken.

(B) Network Development
CICR will support the ACSC initiative by drawing on networks of academic researchers and non-academic practitioners with relevant expertise and interest to offer the ACSC research process ideas and analyses that promise to provide a deeper understanding of conservation trade-offs and lead to sustainable conservation outcomes.  It will harness the capacity of existing and emerging networks by linking with individual social scientists, networks, research institutes and professional organizations interested in ACSC research priorities.  CICR will support the networking and convening function for the broader ACSC project by identifying key figures in the social sciences and other fields whose work is relevant to ACSC research goals and seeking ways to promote their involvement in ACSC research activities.  Particular emphasis will be placed on promoting North/South alliances and fostering research partnerships between social and natural scientists.

One of the mechanisms by which the CICR will link to site-based researchers and institutions will be through co-convening of events and activities.  These will include workshops, training sessions and research.  The research model is explicitly collaborative, teaming academic researchers with practitioners, and promoting research partnerships between Southern and Northern participants.

(C) Communication and Information Management
Given the international focus of the ACSC initiative and the dispersed nature of project partners, effective communication and information management is key to project success.  CICR is currently developing the ACSC website and communication infrastructure, both of which will serve crucial roles in supporting and sustaining the project.  The ACSC website (www.tradeoffs.org, operational March 1) will provide a repository for project documents and a range of online resources available to ACSC research partners.  We have established access protocols in compliance with copyright and fair-use guidelines.  CICR has established an efficient set of procedures for locating, copying, scanning and electronically disseminating materials within the ACSC network, and we will continue to build on this effort.  CICR will also establish procedures to track and assess the impact of ACSC as the project progresses.

Institutional Partners
GIOS/ASU
CRES
Peru
SUA

ACSC Conceptual Framework

ACSC Intervention Matrix